Ages Four and Up
by Beastbot X
Summary: When Jamie comes across a failed attempt at X-Men toys at a local supermarket, he and Kurt decide they're the coolest things ever... after all, how could marketing themselves as toys possibly have a downside, right? ...Right? One last fun romp before the finale. Thirty-seventh in my X-Men Evolution series.


"Ages Four and Up"

by Beastbot

_(Author's Note: Given how different this fic is from nearly every other in my series, I suppose it's of interest to discuss how I came up with this fic and my thoughts behind it before we delve right into it._

_First, you should probably know that this fic is about as serious a contribution to my fanfic series as "_Walk on the Wild Side_" was to the TV series. That is, yes, it's in continuity with the rest of my series, but it's mostly self-contained and was created mainly for kicks and giggles, to stretch the fourth wall without completely shattering it._

_Second, as to the origin of the idea for this fic—I had originally came up with the idea for it as an entirely stand-alone fic, consisting of the "main sequence" of this without the story surrounding it, and intended entirely as a very tongue-in-cheek comedy fic. However, as I got further and further into my series, I sidelined the idea in order to get ahead with the main plot—I didn't want to just suddenly take a break from my series to do an X-Men version of "_And Now For Something Completely Different_". As I began putting the finishing touches on outlining the end of my series, I saw that I had one "open slot" in my 13-fanfics-a-season structure, and that the vast majority of this final season—both before and after this fic—tended to be pretty serious. So, what better way to fill in that slot and shake up things a little than with a comedy-themed fic to help break away from all the seriousness before the big finale? Anyways, this is very much an experiment, and I hope you enjoy it. If you don't… well, take comfort in the fact that there won't be another fic like this in my series._)

* * *

"Wait, where are you going? That's not in the direction of the dairy stuff. Jamie, we still need to get-"

"You've got the shopping list, Scott," Jamie said, waving his friend's objections away as a duplicate split off from his "initial" self and began to walk in the opposite direction down the aisle. "I'm going to the toy section—I need to find something cheap for Christmas for one of my cousins. Oh, and Jubilee wanted me to pick up something for her younger sibs, too."

Scott furrowed his brow slightly before turning back to the cart and scanning the shopping list. "'Something cheap for my cousin'… yeah, nothing shows you care about someone more than something from the clearance aisle…"

"Not _all_ of us have jobs yet, you know," said Roberto, who was also out shopping with Scott and the Jamie duplicate. "Honestly, with the money I make, they're lucky I'm getting them anything at all that isn't something… _ugh_… homemade."

"Hey, homemade gifts can be—"

"Heh…. No, not really. But be sure to say that when you're around your wife, I'm sure her heart will melt at the thought."

"Oh, shut up and get the cereal we need," Scott said. "Jamie, you go and pick up a couple jugs of milk. I'll get the vegetables."

"Just make sure you look at the _signs_ this time when you pick up the grapes," the Jamie duplicate said as he headed away. "Last time I asked for red grapes and you got me green."

"Ha! I get it!" Roberto said as he took off in another direction. "Because of Scott's vi—"

"YES, yes, we all get it," Scott said, slightly aggravated. "Haha."

* * *

The Jamie duplicate that had gone out in the direction of the toys had split into four more Jamies, each searching one aisle of the section for good deals.

It was the one in the second aisle that had spotted the items of interest, though.

"No. WAY," Jamie said out loud, taking the toy off the rack and looking at it. Flipping through the toys hanging from of the pegs, he continued to talk to himself excitedly.

"Oh, man, and there's another one… and there's even- well, not ME, I guess, but given the outfits, these came out BEFORE—oh man oh man oh man, this is too COOL!"

Jamie sent out a thought to his other duplicates to get their butts into the aisle ASAP to help him pick up as many of these toys as they could carry.

_What better Christmas presents could I give everybody than these?!_

* * *

"I don't understand the point of these."

"You say that at least ten times a day, Laura."

"I am serious—"

"—When are you _not_?"

"—STOP interrupting me and just listen for a moment, Jamie," Laura said, a hint of frustration entering her voice. "Usually after an explanation, I am satisfied, even if I do not personally understand the person's fascination. For example, I understood the concept of perfume after Jean explained it to me—if someone did not have the… enhanced smell receptors that I have, I could see how… in some way… they would want to smell nice. Even if it is obvious that that 'nice' smell is manufactured."

"…That's a pretty roundabout way of saying that you still don't understand the point of perfume," Jamie said.

"Man, these are so COOL!" Kurt interrupted. "I can't believe they came out with TWO versions of me—one without my holo-projector and one with!"

"I guess they thought little kids would like a 'normal'-looking version of you… with a tail?!" Jubilee said as Kurt tossed her one. "Okay, now THAT doesn't make sense..."

"I'll tell you what doesn't make sense," Bobby said, holding up the one he had been examining. "These 'extras'. I mean, Toad comes with a… a slime _locker_? What? Why not just a little piece of plastic that can be fired via a button out of his mouth?"

"Better that than what Blob comes with—a shattering _truck grill_," Danielle smirked, holding up the one she was examining for Bobby to look at. "I know you guys have been here longer than I have, but I don't recall him EVER throwing one of those at us. Just pack in a whole truck—might as well. Not to mention… almost everyone else has on their uniform... well, their _old_ uniform, in most cases. Why is Blob in his civvies?"

"I guess whoever put these together thought his outfit looked dumb?" Jubilee shrugged.

"Better that than those form-fitting outfits the rest of us where," Paige laughed. "Could you imagine if Blob—"

"Thanks, for that image," Danielle shuddered. "No, really."

"Can you all BE QUIET and explain this to me?!" Laura said loudly, causing everyone else who was scattered around the center of the living room to immediately stop chatting amongst themselves and turn towards her.

Jamie was about to respond when he heard Professor Xavier wheeling into the room, with Ororo, Jean, Scott, and Kitty in tow.

"What's going on here?" Xavier asked, raising an eyebrow at all the plastic discarded packaging in the middle of the room that most of the other teenage X-Men were huddled around. "Scott told me something about… merchandising?"

"Toys, more specifically!" Kurt said, standing up and waving a handful of them at Xavier excitedly. "Of _us_!"

"Wait, what?" Ororo said as she and the others took a few tentative steps forward, examining the action figures and their cards. "How?"

"I found them in the clearance aisle," Jamie spoke up. "There were a TON of them collecting dust at the local Wal-Mart. I bought one of each—I mean, how could I not at only three bucks a pop?"

"How did these escape our attention?" Jean asked, examining an action figure of Magneto. "And why did they make figures of people like _him_?"

"You've got to have bad guys for the good guys to fight!" Kurt exclaimed.

"Kurt, man, _calm down_," Scott said. "They're not THAT cool. In fact, they look kinda cheap."

"Hey, I grew up in a cottage out in the woods, to keep me isolated from others," Kurt said. "I didn't have anything like this growing up. And now I do… and they're toys of ME!"

"You've got one too, Scott," Paige said, throwing one up to him. Scott fumbled a bit at the unexpected throw, but managed to catch it and look at it.

"...And I come with a… Danger Room turret…" Scott mumbled. "Yeah, I still am not getting the appeal."

"Odd, I'm not seeing any of me…" Kitty said, scanning the pile.

"Storm was the only female they had a toy of," Jubilee huffed.

"What?! Why?"

"Because apparently whoever came out with these decided Mutant superheroes were 'boy stuff'. And boys don't want toys of girls because we're icky and have cooties and stuff like that. Or whatever," Jubilee said, throwing her hands up in the air in a gesture of futility.

"I don't know whether I should be, like, insulted or relieved," Kitty replied, scratching her head absentmindedly.

"Same here," Ororo said slowly, looking over the figure of herself.

"This is definitely peculiar," Xavier said, motioning for Scott to hand over the figure the younger X-Man was holding so that he could take a look at it. "I figured whoever these 'Toybiz' fellows were, that they would have at least contacted us for permission before creating these."

"We're public domain," Kitty explained.

"Huh?" Roberto said, looking up at her from his spot on the ground in confusion.

"We're obviously well-known and have been so ever since the Bayville Sentinel disaster," Kitty responded. "Just like toy companies will make action figures of our nation's presidents—I guess some company figured it'd be pretty lucrative to make toys of a lot of us, which, since we're 'public domain', they can legally do, I guess. Of course, given that Jamie found them in the clearance aisle, I think these 'Toybiz' people guessed wrong on the whole 'lucrative' part."

"Well, we still ARE kinda hated…" Paige said. "I'm honestly surprised that even with the evidence, they let us off the hook after that whole… incident… at Bayville High a few weeks ago."

"I dunno, even given that, it feels kinda… sacrilegious that they'd make so many toys of Logan," Jean said uneasily, motioning towards the various toys of Wolverine scattered around the floor. "I mean, they've got one of Logan, one of him in his old costume, of him in a _tattered version_ of his old costume, in the outfit he used to give us karate lessons in, one of him on a motorcycle…"

"And still not _one_ version of me," Kitty mumbled under her breath.

"I guess they felt the tough anti-hero with claws would sell the best?" Bobby shrugged.

"But… he's _dead_," Jean said softly.

"Well, look, these were obviously developed a few years ago," Kurt said, "Probably as soon as the whole 'Mutants are real' thing calmed down. I mean, the ones of Logan they've got in his old suit that he stopped wearing _two years_ ago, and they don't have toys of any of us that joined past the first year of enrollment here."

"Oh, that I were to have known of this place a few months earlier…" Bobby said.

"I would've preferred a plushie if anything, though…" Kitty continued to mumble to herself.

"Not to mention they've got one of Spyke, who left us almost as long ago… Magneto's also here, who's dead… and Juggernaut, who's been depowered," Kurt continued, holding up the relevant toys as he went through them. "Though of course, those last two happened kind of recently."

"Hey, y'know what?" Jamie asked, his expression as though a light bulb had just turned on over his head. "We should make our OWN toys, the way WE want to!"

"Hey, yeah!" Kurt exclaimed. "That's a _great_ idea!"

"Huh?" Jubilee said. "You remember these were _in the clearance aisle_, right?"

"That's because they weren't done right!" Jamie said. "I mean, no toys of a lot of us, stupid accessories like a slime locker… we could do better than this!"

"Yeah, hey, Professor, I overheard you going through the finances with Mr. McCoy the other day," Kurt said. "How you were thinking of raising tuition costs—well, for those of us that are able to pay, anyway—to help cover rising maintenance costs, or whatever. Honestly, I wasn't paying _that _close attention. But the point is, what if we produce some stuff like _this_ instead?"

"I'm not sure this is the best avenue towards that goal," Xavier said, an eyebrow still raised oddly at the figure of Cyclops in his hands. "I would prefer something a bit more… subtle. Less self-aggrandizing, perhaps."

"Yeah, plus, do you realize the overhead on that kinda stuff?" Kitty said. "Paying for plastic molds, contracting factories in China, getting mass retailers to buy into them… that's not cheap."

"Nor practical," Xavier said.

"Oh, come on!" Jamie insisted. "We can make it work!"

Xavier was about to reply when a sudden SNIKT! sound came from a corner of the room. Everyone suddenly turned their attention to Laura, who had unsheathed her claws.

"Laura, what-?" Jean began after a few seconds of stunned silence, suddenly concerned.

"I have been silent long enough," Laura said, re-sheathing her claws. "That was merely to get your attention. Now. What. Is. The purpose. Of these?"

* * *

"You'll never stop me from smothering you, for I am THE BLOB! MWAAAAHHH!"

"Not if I can help it! Activate LASER BLAST! Pa-chooooo!"

"Ha! That tickled! Now I'll smash you with this truck grill and Magneto can—"

"Ohmigod, seriously? You guys are STILL playing with those things?"

"Uh… yeah?" Jamie said, the Blob figure in his hands falling to his side.

"It's almost midnight. Everyone else lost interest hours ago, and I'm about to hit the sack too," Jubilee said, hands on her hips as she looked down at Kurt and Jamie, alone in the corner of the same room, nearly all of the various figures open and strewn around the spots on the carpet they were currently occupying. "C'mon guys, I have to admit they were a fun curiosity for a little while, but… they're little kids' toys. You playing for them for this long is… kinda weird."

Kurt put down the Cyclops toy he had been holding and picked up one of the many ripped-open package cards, pointing to small lettering at the very top of the package. "Do you see what this says, Jubilee?"

Jubilee sighed and rolled her eyes, seeing where this was going. "It says 'Ages Four and Up'."

"That's right," Kurt said, putting the package back down. "And I consider myself part of the 'Up'."

"Whatever," Jubilee said, waving towards them dismissively and beginning to walk away as Jamie and Kurt bumped fists together. "I'm going to bed."

"You SURE you don't want to be part of our line once we get the logistics worked out?" Jamie teased as Jubilee walked away.

After it was obvious that Jubilee was ignoring him, Jamie yelled out to her, "Your loss!"

"Much as I hate to say it, though, it IS getting late," Kurt said. "We should probably clean all this up and get to bed."

"Yeah… right," Jamie said, a little crestfallen. "We can pick up where we left off tomorrow."

As they began to gather up the plastic bubbles and card backs, Kurt said, laughing, "Man, I can't believe how long it took for us to explain to Laura what these were."

"Eh, give her a bit of a break," Jamie said. "There's a LOT of stuff new to her here, and, well… just give her a break."

"Uh… yeah, sure, no problem," Kurt said, giving Jamie a questioning glance, though the latter didn't seem to acknowledge it. "So, uh, I figure sometime over the next week or so we can research some stuff about toy production on the Internet, maybe put together some initial plans for a toyline to show to the Professor?"

"Well, we definitely wouldn't want to put any of the Brotherhood members or Acolytes in it, that's for sure," Jamie said. "I mean, this could be a GREAT way to get people comfortable with us, y'know? Getting us out there and all that."

"Yeah, it's a long shot, but I definitely think if everything aligns right, this could really be something great," Kurt said. "I'm hopeful, anyways."

"Hey, we've both definitely had worse ideas since becoming X-Men…" Jamie said, smirking slightly.

"That's for sure," Kurt said, each of them picking up an armful of the toys. "So, I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah… though, heh, it just occurred to me we opened all of them when a few of them were supposed to be gifts," Jamie said sheepishly.

"They'd still like them just as much loose," Kurt shrugged. "I mean, they're toys of US, for crying out loud."

"True. G'night, Kurt."

"Good night."

* * *

"Elf! Hey, Elf, wake up already! You gonna snooze all day?!"

Kurt shielded his eyes as the curtain to his room was abruptly opened, letting the sunlight pour into his room. "Ugh, Logan, just a few more—"

And then it hit Kurt.

He had just heard Logan's voice talking to him.

Suddenly he leapt out of bed, getting into a readying position. "Logan, is… is that _you_?!"

"Of course it's me," Logan said, raising an eyebrow. "Now, get out of your civvies and into your uniform. You've got a session down in the Danger Room."

"Oh, man, you're ALIVE!" Kurt said excitedly, running up and giving Logan a bear hug.

"Uh… yeah, I am…." Logan said hesitantly, gingerly pushing Kurt away. "You alright, 'Crawler?"

"Oh, absolutely!" Kurt said, "But how did—"

And then Kurt noticed something else odd.

The slight squeak he and Logan made when they moved, the gaps in between places like their shoulders and hips—they looked—and Logan felt—like they were made of plastic.

Something at the base of Kurt's brain registered how wrong this was, but for some reason he got over it pretty quickly.

"How did what?" Logan asked, the same quizzical expression on his face.

"Uh…. er, nothing," Kurt said, waving the matter away. "I'll be down in fifteen."

* * *

Kurt was all suited up—somehow, as he noticed that he was still simply plastic with paint on him—and hurried into the Danger Room, expecting to see most of his comrades busy fighting the Danger Room's plethora of obstacles.

He was a bit disappointed.

"Cyclops? Spyke? Where is everybody else?"  
"Huh? What are you talking about?" Cyclops said, grunting as he dodged the lone cannon in the room that for some reason only seemed to be firing at him. Once the cannon had launched all four of its projectiles at Scott, he stopped and stooped down to pick up the large transparent yellow missiles and proceeded to load them one-at-a-time back into the turret. "Kurt, who else?"

"Uhh… Shadowcat? Jean? Rogue? Iceman? …Ringing any bells?"

"Shadowcat?" Spyke snickered, stopping the beating he was giving a practice dummy in one corner of the Danger Room and giving a push on his skateboard, sending himself rolling towards Kurt. "That sounds like a _girl's_ codename."

In addition to the exposed joints that both Cyclops and Spyke had, Kurt noticed that both of them looked like they had during the first year or so after Kurt had met them.

The Danger Room was also remarkably barren—besides the lone turret and the practice dummy, there was a small gadget which Kurt somehow knew was called a "Gymcisor" in the corner, consisting of a single bar that he could flip around and a small turret, which was currently off-line as its transparent orange projectile was lying halfway across the room.

"Uh… it is," Kurt said, raising an eyebrow. "So are Jean and Rogue. So?"  
Both Cyclops and Spyke broke down into laughter.

"Girls? In the X-Men? Are you crazy?" Cyclops laughed. "Girls can't do superhero stuff!"

"Yeah," Spyke snorted, "And even if they could, they're… girls. Ugh. Except for Auntie O, though, she's cool."

"Yeah, I mean, she's a _black_ woman with _white_ hair. And she's not even old!" Cyclops exclaimed. "How awesome is that?"

It was at this point that, somewhere deep in Kurt's subconscious, he had finally come to the conclusion that he was in a dream and to just roll with it all.

"This 'Iceman' guy sounds cool, though," Spyke admitted. "Oooh, and I bet you could see right through most of him! I hope we'll meet him someday."

"Yeah, maybe when Series Four gets released," Cyclops shrugged.

"Alright, so what's the Danger Room training session today?" Kurt said, trying to steer the conversation elsewhere.

"Uhhh… same thing we always do," Spyke said. "Dodge the turrets and punch up the dummy, while you do flips on your Gymcisor because you're nimble and stuff. Oh, and be careful with that thing, dude. The spring in the missile launcher is firing on a hair trigger lately."

"Alright, so now let's—" Cyclops began, but was interrupted as they all heard the familiar voice of Professor Xavier in their minds.

_Students! Quickly, get to the X-Garage and help Wolverine with his motorcycle! I've been scanning with Cerebro, and it looks like we have our work cut out for us—both Magneto, Toad, Blob, Sabretooth, AND Juggernaut are all attacking Bayville High!_

"Bayville High?" Nightcrawler said, confused, asking Spyke and Cyclops just as much as Xavier. "Why would they attack there? There's nothing there that they'd want!"

_They're attacking there _because they're bad guys! Xavier replied back in Kurt's mind, flustered. _That's what bad guys do—attack things! Now, quickly, before Juggernaut can do any more damage with his CRUSHING TRASH CAN!_

"Whoa, they've got their accessories with them, too?!" Cyclops exclaimed. "Man, this sounds serious. C'mon Kurt, we've got a job to do!"

* * *

"Where's Storm?" Cyclops asked as the three teenage X-Men arrived in the X-Garage, which was mostly filled with Wolverine's many motorcycles, all with different themed paint jobs.

"She's gone ahead, to try to distract 'em and soften 'em up for the main course," Wolverine said, now in his own orange-and-black X-uniform. "Now c'mon, help me with this."

"Uh… help you?" Nightcrawler asked. "It's a motorcycle. Don't you… _know_ how to ride it?"

"'A course I do!" Wolverine snarled, obviously angry at the mere suggestion that he didn't. "But it's a Bump 'n Go cycle. Seriously, you get up on the wrong side 'a the bed this morning, Elf?"

"Uh… yeah," Nightcrawler said, following Spyke and Cyclops' lead and grabbing the back end of the motorcycle.

Spyke and Cyclops both began to slowly pull the motorcycle that Logan was sitting on back, and Nightcrawler joined in once he figured out what it was they were doing. The motorcycle was a lot lighter than he had expected…

"Alright, now remember, only roll it back until it clicks," Wolveirne said.

"Right, we've done this a million times before," Spyke said.

Several seconds later, the back wheel on Wolverine's cycle finally started to click.

"Alright, everyone," Cyclops said. "Release on one…two…THREE!"

Kurt, Evan, and Scott all let go of Wolverine's motorcycle at the same time, and he zipped off out of the garage and towards the gate leading out of the Mansion grounds.

"Alright, now that we've got Wolverine going," Cyclops said, "Kurt, teleport us to the school."

"Su—wait, what?" Kurt asked. "Why didn't I just teleport all four of us?"

"Because Wolverine has that awesome motorcycle, dude," Spyke said, shaking his head. "You've got to use it, or what's the point of getting one?!"

"Uh… right. Okay, you two, grab on. Next stop: Bayville High."

* * *

Nightcrawler 'ported to Bayville High—or what he THOUGHT was Bayville High. Standing in its place were several giant boxes in the rough shape of the school, with marker lines denoting where the doors, windows, and the other major features were supposed to be.

That wasn't what really got Kurt, though; instead of the classmates he had always known during his time at the school running for their lives, there were a bunch of various building block minifigures heading for the hills—none of them much taller than Kurt's knees. (Naturally, their screams of terror were high-pitched.)

"This is REALLY getting weird," Kurt mumbled to himself, but Spyke apparently overheard it.

"Well, what do you expect when they won't come out with any civilians or big playsets?" Spyke shrugged—right before he got hit by a barrel that looked like it had been ripped in half, with a long jagged transparent orange piece of plastic connecting the two parts.

Sabretooth howled in triumph from the other end of the street. "Better keep your eyes on the prize, kid—you just got hit by my TOXIC ATTACK BARREL! Gonna be… minutes, at least, before you can stand up again!"

"Alright, that's IT!" Cyclops said, unleashing an optic blast at Sabretooth, who dodged out of the way.

"You heard the boy," Magneto yelled to his subordinates. "They want a fight—let's give it to them."

"Be careful!" Storm said from her position on top of a translucent "cloud" base, pressing on a button with her foot to launch a projectile out of it, which Juggernaut dodged. "They've got ALL of their accessories with them this time!"

"Yeah," Blob grinned evilly, brandishing an oversized truck grill in one hand. "And some 'a you don't!"

"Yeah, that's right!" Toad chimed in as he climbed up on top of a series of three lockers that were just standing there in middle of the street for no apparent reason. "Let's see you get me with THESE in place!"

Nightcrawler merely shook his head as he ported over to the Juggernaut's upper back, getting ready to unlock a latch as usual—only to discover the latches were merely painted on.

"HEY!" Juggernaut yelled, reaching back with his arms to get Kurt off—but unfortunately for the evil Mutant, his arms weren't manufactured with enough of a range of motion to allow him to adequately grasp Nightcrawler.

"Huh," Kurt said, looking at Juggernaut's attempts to grab him in a slightly disappointed manner. "Well, this is going to be easier than I thought."

With a slight push forward, Juggernaut's helmet came off, clattering to the street ground.

"NO!" Juggernaut yelled, bending down to pick up the helmet.

Nightcrawler saw the incoming projectile and teleported out of the way just in time, as Wolverine hit Juggernaut full force with his Bump 'n Go cycle, sending the latter tumbling backwards.

Wolverine's motorcycle tumbled end over end, striking the main box of Bayville High and denting it some before it finally came to a stop.

"Oops," Wolverine shrugged. "Guess we wound it up a little too much."

Wolverine was hit in the back with Blob's truck grill, who was swinging it around, trying to take out anyone within arms' reach of him.

"No way you're gonna stop us from getting to Bayville High and… and setting it on fire!" Blob roared. "'Cause that's what bad guys do!"

"Blob!" Magneto scolded. "Be quiet! You can't tell them about our master plan!"

"Ah, crud," Wolverine said, getting back up and seeing that his costume was now torn up in a few places.

"Uh-oh," Cyclops said, in between blasts at Toad and Sabretooth. "You've been BATTLE RAVAGED!"

"Alright, hang on a sec," Wolverine said, running off in the direction of the far side of Bayville Cardboard High. "Gotta change into some other awesome costume. You guys hold 'em off 'till I get back!"

As Wolverine ran out of sight, Spyke slowly sat back up, rubbing the back of his head. "Ugh. I think I've finally recovered from that toxic stuff that Sabretooth threw at me."

"Good, 'cause Blob just blurted out Magneto's master plan!" Cyclops said. "Spyke, go and find a hose! We'll get Bayville High so damp they'll NEVER be able to put it on fire!"

Nightcrawler was about to object, but thought better of it. There were so many things wrong with Cyclops' plan he didn't know where to start.

As Nightcrawler pinched his sinuses, he looked back over to Cyclops to see that Toad had finally managed to haul his three lockers over behind the laser-blasting X-Man.

"Cyclops, LOOK OUT!" Nightcrawler said—right before he got pummeled in the back of the head with a truck grill.

"Better pay attention to yourself!" Blob grinned.

"Hey, Cyke—gotcha!" Toad laughed as he opened the doors to his slime lockers and spring-loaded pieces of transparent green plastic flipped forward slightly, causing Cyclops to fall to the ground, struggling to get up under the slimy weight of all that mucus.

At least, that's how Kurt assumed it was supposed to happen; all of the green plastic was actually attached to the locker, so none of it actually fell on Cyclops, even though the latter was sure acting like it had.

Storm wasn't in much better shape—Juggernaut had gotten back up and was currently carrying his CRUSHING TRASH CAN, menacing Storm with it. Storm had sent all of the wind she could at him, but it wasn't slowing down the big Mutant much. Worse still, Storm couldn't back away—she was pegged into her cloud base, and thus couldn't move her legs.

As Storm was battered into unconsciousness by Juggernaut's dumb trash can, Kurt had finally decided he had had enough.

"Alright, I'm not playing by this stupid dream's rules anymore!" Nightcrawler said in frustration, rubbing his head as he stood back up.

Blob roared and prepared to smash Kurt down into the concrete again, but Kurt merely turned around and pressed the trigger button in the middle of the truck grill, causing it to fall apart into two pieces.

Blob merely looked at the grill in confusion, scratching his head as Nightcrawler teleported over to Juggernaut, taking a hold of the giant's shoulders and teleporting them both to the outskirts of the battlefield, taking care to lay Juggernaut on his back.

As everyone knows, when a toy is injured and out of the fight, you lay them on their back or stomach, outside of the normal battle arena—which was exactly what Kurt did. And sure enough, Juggernaut suddenly stopped moving. Satisfied that it was working, Kurt repeated the procedure with Sabretooth.

"Uh-oh," Toad gulped. "Blue Boy's suddenly got skills! Ah, I'm outta here."

Leaning down far enough, a button in the middle of Toad's back clicked up, locking his lower legs into place.

Nightcrawler teleported over to Toad's position just as Toad hit the button to launch his legs—and him—up into the air and out of harm's way.

At least, that was his intention. His legs straightened out, but with barely any force, and instead he just tumbled over, face planted into the ground.

"Ah, man," Toad grumbled. "Stupid quality control. Springs ain't strong enough for me to hop!"

_This dream is seriously starting to unravel_, Kurt thought to himself. _Time to finish it off._

"Good job, Kurt!" Cyclops said, flicking imaginary slime off of him as he stood back up. "Now it's time to stop Magneto's master plan!"

They both turned their attention to Magneto, who had levitated a lighter about half the size of a person to the side of one of the Bayville High cardboard boxes, and was currently attempting to flick the lighter on.

Magneto glanced at them, than did a double take. "What?! How did you manage to dispatch my minions so quickly?"

"'Crawler's on the top of his game today," Cyclops said, shielding his eyes from the water splash as Spyke continued to soak the boxes representing Bayville High with his hose, the boxes slowly slouching downwards as they drew in the weight of the water, the marker ink that represented the doors and windows of the school beginning to run as well.

"Alright, then," Magneto growled, tossing aside the giant lighter. "Time to finish this—"

"Wait, wait, WAIT!" Wolverine said from the distance, huffing and puffing as he made his way back around the corner, now dressed up in mostly white clothes with a black belt around his waist, his head completely unmasked. "I've got a new outfit on, and…. and… man, I'm out of breath… and now you've got to face NINJA WOLVERINE, and… wait, where'd Sabretooth go?"

"Nightcrawler knocked him out," Spyke said his hose continued to turn Bayville High into a wet, crumpled mess.

"Nightcrawler… what?" Ninja Wolverine said, in utter disbelief. "But… Sabretooth is MY arch rival!"

"Yeah, well, I don't have an arch rival, so I improvised," Kurt said, shrugging. "Maybe if you didn't change outfits so often…"

"ENOUGH OF THIS!" Magneto said, summoning his own accessory—a "metal" (i.e., chromed plastic) sphere to his side, which had its own projectile locked in and ready to go. "If I can't burn down Bayville High, at least I can kill you X-Men, who have been constant thorns in my side!"

Magneto "levitated" into the air, but instead of actually floating, a giant arm came down from the heavens and lifted him up a few stories instead.

Kurt glanced at the other X-Men, who didn't even seemed fazed by the sudden arm and hand, so he decided not to be fazed by it either.

"Get 'im!" Ninja Wolverine said, running towards Magneto. Magneto put forth one of his hands and gestured for Wolverine to be turned around, the Acolyte leader now in full control of Wolverine's (theoretically) metal skeleton.

"Aw, no!" Spyke said. "What a twist! We almost had 'im, but now Magneto's turned the the most awesome Mutant of all time against US!"

"What chance do we have now?!" Cyclops said in abject terror. "Everyone, retreat! …Oh, yeah, and Spyke, pick up Storm on the way out."

"Wait, you guys can't be serious—" Kurt began, but turning back to look at his fellow X-Men running away, it was obvious that Cyclops was quite serious.

"Alright, that's it," Kurt sighed, and sat down on the ground, closing his eyes and waiting for the dream to be over already. "I give up."

"Good," Magneto smiled as he forced Ninja Wolverine to slowly inch towards Kurt, Logan's claws fully extended. "Just close your eyes and wait for the end, you—"

"BURT! DINNER!"

"Aw, mom! C'mon, I was just about to have Magneto—"

"NOW! YOU CAN PLAY WITH YOUR TOYS LATER!"

Kurt opened his eyes again, only to find he was completely unable to move. More unsettling was that the sky, the other buildings, they had all gone away—now he was simply frozen in place in a giant kid's room (well, giant from his perspective as an action figure)—a kid who had been yelling to his mother elsewhere in the house.

The kid apparently named "Burt"—who looked an awful lot like a young version of Kurt, had he looked normal- seemed about to protest, but finally thought better of it and set his Magneto toy down on the carpet, sighing as he got up and kicked Nightcrawler across the room. Given that the latter was made of plastic, it really didn't hurt Kurt per se, but it was pretty disorienting.

"Alright, Magneto kills all the X-Men with Ninja Wolverine, then the police come and kill him, and all the Mutants are dead—except for Wolverine, who can't die, so he's put in a… adamantium-proof jail, or something. Hooray, everyone is free from the Mutants!"

And with that, Burt ran out of the room, from the sound of it running downstairs for dinner.

Kurt just sighed and stared ahead at his sideways view of Burt's room from the ground—unable to blink or even move his neck, he just laid there, staring at the various X-Men figures scattered around in front of his vision, with a couple of wet cardboard boxes representing Bayville High set on the carpet behind them.

_Well. This is boring._

No sooner had Kurt thought that than he heard a snort from outside in the hallway, along with some heavy sniffing—and moments later, an English bulldog made his way into the room, sniffing the various X-Men figures scattered in front of Kurt repeatedly.

If Kurt could wince, he would have as the bulldog turned his attention to him and sniffed its way over to him, eventually its cold nose snorting all over Kurt and leaving mucus all over him.

_Okay, this dream can seriously stop now—_

In a split second, Kurt saw the bulldog open is mouth, lick him once, and then—

_NO!_

-he felt the teeth begin to bite down around his body.

* * *

"GAH!" Kurt yelled, sitting up suddenly in bed, sweat matting his fur to his sides.

Breathing heavily, Kurt mumbled to himself, "Okay… I'm not going to let THAT happen again."

After he had finished calming himself down, Kurt got out of bed, opened the curtains to his room showing the early morning sky, and began to get dressed quickly—on a mission, as it were.

* * *

X-23 was about to turn the doorknob open to her room when she heard Kurt and Jamie arguing amongst themselves as they turned a corner and made their way down the hall towards her.

"…doesn't make any sense! You're giving up on this whole thing because of a bad dream?! C'mon, Kurt, you know that wasn't real!"

"I KNOW, Jamie, I know… but still, parts of it seemed… somewhat plausible. Like my brain was trying to tell me something."

"Huh?"

"Look, suppose we go down this road. We can't _market_ ourselves, Jamie! Not like that! When people buy superhero figures, they think of them as something different—they can be bad or good—but they're still different. What we need people to do is think of us as normal people, not just heroes and villains with cool powers! I get what the others were talking about last night, now— even if this would take off, there's nothing to keep that mindset setting into people, and that's not what we're trying to do, here. The best idea is just to try to blend in with society as best as we can—without outright hiding what we are, of course."

"Says the guy with an image inducer."

By this point, they were walking right by Laura, who had caught on to what subject Kurt and Jamie were talking about.

"He's right, you know," Laura said flatly to Kurt.

Kurt raised a finger in protest, but slowly put it down.

"Actually…. you know what? You're right," Kurt said, taking off his watch, his image flickering back to his true blue self. "_I'm_ right, and I need to live it. Unless I need to go undercover or something, I'm done with the image inducer. It's not like people are unaware I'm a Mutant anymore, anyways."

"Wow… you're really serious about this, aren't you?" Jamie asked.

"I mean it, Jamie," Kurt said, as both of them continued down the hall past Laura. "I know we opened them all last night, but you should still give most of those to the relatives you originally were going to—or at least donate them to charity, or something. There's a reason those toys were in the clearance bin…"

"Aw, c'mon, can't I keep just one? I'm not the only one who wants something like this- I saw her earlier today, Kitty's even sewing her own little plushie of herself!"

"What?! I thought she said…"

Although Laura could have continued to pay attention to the rest of the conversation given her enhanced senses, she lost interest as she opened the door to her room and closed it behind her—locking it.

Listening carefully to make sure no one else was walking by, Laura walked over and gingerly opened the top drawer in her desk, and did something she hadn't done in quite some time.

She smiled, looking down at the Logan action figure she had snuck out of the pile last night, and a few moments later closed the drawer again and began preparing herself for her morning Danger Room session.

The End


End file.
